Articles

If a person’s life expectancy is predicated simply on where they live, as research shows, what can be done to improve the health of those in unhealthy neighborhoods? Dr. Tony Iton, senior vice president for Healthy Communities at The California Endowment, says it’ll take fighting inequities and discriminatory beliefs.

Time-consuming and costly efforts to reform the educational system in the United States have failed, with test scores having barely budged from three decades ago. But a researcher presenting at a CESR conference believes our schools can be saved – if our communities want to step up and help.

As Americans begin working for themselves in greater numbers, either by choice or for lack of other opportunities, public policy will need to change with the labor force to prevent inequality from worsening.

Just what factors make a nation’s citizens happy with their country? Research from CESR Executive Director Arie Kapteyn shows it’s not simply a matter of having a pocketful of dollars (or kroner or francs or…). The social safety net plays a large role in a citizen’s contentment, as does the government in charge of administering those benefits.

On Wednesday, March 15 at USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research celebrated a five-year anniversary by hosting a conference on The Future of Inequality. This post summarizes keynote presentations exploring inequities in the areas of demography, international comparisons, mortality, labor, and education, from Anthony Iton, Arie Kapteyn, Anne Case, Angus Deaton, Alan Krueger and Paul Reville.

For many white Americans without a college education, avenues of opportunity that once were available to them have been blocked off. Now, as a reaction to poor health, dead-end jobs, failing families, and crumbling institutions, evidence shows this vulnerable population is giving up on their lives in astonishing numbers.(more…)